I can't help but find this a tiny bit crass, in the context of 'shedding no tears'. At the end of the day, a whole bunch of people who had little or no say in being sent to war are dead before their time.

I'm not defending the Argentine government in this statement, but I think this lack of sympathy for people who had no say in their fate, just because they were on the wrong side, is not very becoming.

http://iaindale.blogspot.co.uk/2007/...threat-to.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ask-Force.html


'Meanwhile, the Argentine admiral Enrique Molina Pico later admitted the location of the Belgrano outside the Exclusion Zone ‘did not mean it was withdrawn from the war’.
‘The integrated naval force had been deployed to carry out an attack on the British fleet in a co-ordinated operation with other naval groups,’ he wrote.
‘The heading away from the enemy fleet was only momentary, as the commander saw fit to wait for a more convenient time (to attack).
'The Belgrano and the other ships were a threat and a danger to the British.’

Also plenty of info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_General_Belgrano

As I mentioned in previous posts, Iain Dale's choice of language is often regrettable (from his blog):

'if you are a raving leftie who knows bugger all about military matters'

Is this really necessary? It's a shame (to me) because he seems like quite a nice chap on the radio.

Absolutely right, and well said.

Thank you both for the links - that's very interesting reading.

I have to agree with Charlie D about Iain's choice of language, though. It's the stuff of the playground.

I completely agree.
We're all aware that Dale is 'of the right' but it was tempered by a degree of humanity, thoughfulness, intelligence and general feeling that Dale was somehow above the usual 'Yah Boo Leftie' type of approach.

This week has brought that facade tumbling down and he's come across as being really quite a nasty individual, irrational, blinkered and unwilling to even contemplate that it's possible for someone to hold an alternative point of view without them being in stupid, uninformed or mentally unstable.

I've been following his tweets on the subject and find them at best dismissive and at worst absolutely vile.

He's hit the floor this week for me.
I don't think I'll be able to listen to him in quite the same way again.

Interesting that James O'Brien has chosen a football metaphor for the way comment on Thatcher's death is being conducted. I'm glad he's back.

Jekyll and Hyde springs to mind.

Of course. That is what war is. I remember WWll and I can tell you that, at times like that, it's everyone for one's own.
The Belgrano could have turned at any time and put our own mens' lives at risk. We had to do everything necessary to protect them and we did.

Unfortunately there's that little thing called the Law of Armed Conflict. A pox upon those annoying little laws that mean we can't just do as we please and say "Oh well what if it had turned!?" If my auntie had balls, etc...

.................or even "if my son had been on one of the British ships"..... as mine was!!

I'm not going to argue the toss over the rights and wrongs of the Belgrano, because frankly I just don't know them.

But I cannot stop feeling that this whole 'not shedding any tears' thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I was hoping to hear at least some sympathy for dead men in war, but have heard none.

But I suppose the 'everyone for one's own' culture was pure Thatcher, so it's maybe not surprising. I just don't like it. Co-operation is so much nicer, kinder and more productive, I feel.

One of my 'heroes' is Commander Vimes from the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. If you know him, it may help to explain my thinking on this kind of thing.

Do you truly think that this culture began with Thatcher? I'm no fan of the woman myself but history has just kept on repeating itself for centuries. It is true adage that if you do not learn from the mistakes of the past you will only go on to repeat them.

I don't like it either

Hi there

I certainly agree that Thatcher was not the founding father (mother?) of selfishness (but to be fair, I didn't say that either). But I think she put in place policies that facilitated selfishness and greed, used a rhetoric that turned those things into virtues rather than sins, and which changed the shape of British politics fundamentally.

In summing this up, I guess I could say this: The economy and money were created to serve mankind, but now mankind serves the economy and money. I think Thatcher probably tipped us over the precipice on that.

Many former servicemen have shed bitter tears and have the greatest of respect and empathy for the men they fought against, especially for those who were conscripted into conflicts in which they may not share the point of view of those who sent them to war.

Don't assume I'm some sort of rabid Scargill worshipper, but does anyone feel that the curently fashionable 'flexible' contracts* being offered by many High Street retailers now are a direct result of Mrs Thatcher's attack on Trades Unions?



* Flexible Contracts involve being hired for perhaps one shift per week.
The employer can then require the employee to work additional hours as or when necessary.
If the employee refuses to comply on three occasions, they can be dismissed.

Huh!! If those are you feelings you had for General Galtieri during the Falklands war, you'd have been skating on very thin ice.
'Naive' is the word which springs to mind. Clearly, you have never had to live through a war. I hope you never do.

Hah!! So makeba 72's clearly another one of Dale's "raving leftie who knows bugger all about military matters".

Probably a benefit cheating immigrant too if the truth be known!

To be honest, VQ, you don't seem to read what I actually write, as your answers are so often almost complete non-sequiturs How on earth is anything I've said naive? You've seen 2+2 and made 5 out of what I've actually said

I've made it quite plain more than once that I think it was right to go into the Falklands and that I don't defend the Argentine military junta.

You completely fail to respond to the actual points I've made and make some wild assumptions and quantum leaps.

This must be what it feels like to phone James Max...

Edit - living through a war gives you a perspective, sure, but it doesn't give you a monopoly on the truth.

Shhhh! Don't tell everyone.

You can add the zero-hour contract to that, also.

Even under Capitalism, this makes no sense to me at all. In order to make money, you have to have some certainty. By contracting with employees like this, you remove all confidence and increase stress levels.

Who's going to make any large purchases on that basis? And what is the cost to the public sector of the resultant poor health that all this stress bring with it?

This is the UK. We have food-banks. We have people committing suicide. We have even more people choosing between heating and eating, whilst the richest get tax cuts and corporations get sweetheart deals. How long till the next bout of riots, folks? The resultant inhumanity that prizes money above life.

I feel personally quite aggrieved by this as my teenage son is on such a contract and took a second job to try to increase his income.
The first job (the one he'd really like to make a career in) lost a couple of staff members and for a couple of months, he was needed almost full time, so was forced to give up the second job.

Now the new financial year has kicked in, first employer has taken on two new staff members and son is back to 7.5 hours for the forseeable future.

Interestingly, the new empoyees are also young kids who live with mum, who presumably support them in the way I have to support my son.

Can proper adults with mortgages and familes afford to take these jobs?
Are they the people who are the benefit scroungers we keep hearing about?
Is this the reason umemployment hasn't risen as much as expected in a recession?

No, they can't. And they wouldn't get a mortgage in the first place anyway

Well you try telling that to General Galtieri!

They might have had a mortgage before they took the job.

Perhaps they were one of the 100,000+ retail workers who lost their jobs since 2010.

Now they're just scroungers leeching off the rest of us aren't they?

I see this becoming a catchphrase.